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Sensitivity of the Himalayan Hydrology to Land-Use and Climatic Changes

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Abstract

Land-use and climatic changes are ofmajor concerns in the Himalayan region because oftheir potential impacts on a predominantlyagriculture-based economy and a regional hydrologydominated by the monsoons. Such concerns are notlimited to any particular basin but exist throughoutthe region including the downstream plains. As arepresentative basin of the Himalayas, the Kosi Basin(54,000 km2) located in the mountainous area ofthe central Himalayan region was selected as a studyarea. We used water balance and distributeddeterministic modeling approaches to analyze thehydrologic sensitivity of the basin to projectedland-use, and potential climate change scenarios.Runoff increase was higher than precipitation increasein all the potential precipitation change scenariosapplying contemporary temperature. The scenario ofcontemporary precipitation and a rise in temperatureof 4 °C caused a decrease in runoff bytwo to eight percent depending upon the areasconsidered and models used. In the absence of climaticchange, the results from a distributed water balancemodel applied in the humid south of the basinindicated a reduction in runoff by 1.3% in thescenario of maximum increase in forest areas below4,000 m.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, P.O. Box 406, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Keshav P. Sharma

  2. Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 03824, U.S.A.

    Charles J. Vorosmarty & Berrien Moore III

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 03824, U.S.A.

    Charles J. Vorosmarty

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  1. Keshav P. Sharma
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  2. Charles J. Vorosmarty
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  3. Berrien Moore III
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Sharma, K.P., Vorosmarty, C.J. & Moore, B. Sensitivity of the Himalayan Hydrology to Land-Use and Climatic Changes. Climatic Change 47, 117–139 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005668724203

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